Monday, December 26, 2011

Since I'm working these days on the initiative to end death sentences in California, I'm more than usually aware of the inequities in our criminal justice system. Despite the earnest efforts of courts and lawyers (at least most of them, most of the time), the legal system is neither efficient or reliably fair.

[A Philadelphia] study examined murder cases of indigent defendants with similar profiles in the city from 1994 to 2005. The conviction rate of clients represented by staff lawyers working for the public defender association, a nonprofit organization that the city pays for its services, was 19 percent lower than those represented by court-appointed lawyers working alone. Their expected time served in prison was 24 percent lower, and they were far less likely to get a life sentence.

Philadelphia’s public defenders, who are randomly assigned to represent one out of every five indigent defendants accused of murder, are paid decent salaries, have money to hire expert witnesses and work in experienced teams. Court-appointed lawyers, representing the rest, are poorly paid, tend to take on more cases than they can handle and generally practice without feedback from other lawyers. As a result, the study concludes, defendants with court-appointed lawyers often get inadequate counsel, in violation of the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment, and are vulnerable to greater punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

It's as if the city of Philadelphia had set up a scientific experiment to discern what method of providing lawyers to the poor achieved better results -- and the results are in.

But wouldn't providing better legal representation cost a lot of money? Well perhaps, but we are talking about depriving people of their freedom, so we ought to get it right. And the same study suggests the cost may not be so large as we intuitively think.

... if the state helped to improve the quality of counsel, it would achieve fairer outcomes, and possibly reduce prison costs by over $200 million. The citizens of Pennsylvania would benefit, as well as the indigent defendants.

All this accords with what I've seen when friends ended up before the courts; see a longer description here. Overworked public defenders do a very professional job of representing people who've tumbled into the junkyard of society; we need more, not less, of them.

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What's this blog about?

My musings on current events, current projects, current anxieties and current delights.

I started this under the Bush regime when any grain of sand thrown into the gears of the over-reaching imperial state seemed worthwhile.

I have worked to elect more and better Democrats -- and to hammer the shit out of them once we get them in office so they do the things their constituents want and need. It's a big job.

I have endured the dashed potential for a more transformational regime under Obama. The man has made himself an accomplice in the imperial crimes of his predecessor as well as committing his own. He has also almost certainly been the most progressive president most of us will live to see. I fear we'll look back on his years in office with mild gratitude for a respite from national leadership that was habitually stupid and vicious, as well as wrong.

Visitors here will find a lot of commentary on books I'm reading. I am very intentionally reading intensively offline these days. When it feels hard to find direction, it's time to learn something new.

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About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. I am currently an independent consultant to organizations seeking "help when you have to make a fight."